Brother to Dragons, Companion to Owls - Jane Lindskold [25]
“And something,” Abalone confirms, rumpling her unrumpleable hair. “The outer programs were a breeze. I could have gotten through them when I…I got through them easily. When I started on the records for this latest ‘purge’ and some Dr. Haas who was in charge of Sarah’s case, well…”
She shakes her head in amazement.
“So you didn’t learn anything?” Professor Isabella asks.
Abalone raises her eyebrows indignantly, “I didn’t say that. I just said it wasn’t easy. C’mere.
“I didn’t want to be too direct about this,” Abalone begins once we have positioned ourselves so that we can see her screen. “If someone is really looking for Sarah, her files might be flagged so that unauthorized entry would be noticed. So I went on a less obvious tangent.”
She pauses to sip her cocoa, grimacing when she finds it has grown cold.
“I knew about when Sarah appeared on the street, so I worked backward through the files, looking for when the orders came down. When I found them, I cross-checked by matching not only Sarah’s name, but Ali and Francis, those two fellows Jerome mentioned. Then, when I was sure I had the right group I checked who the controlling authorities were. There were three physicians or psychiatrists, Doctors Davidoff, N’goya, and Haas, who came in from outside. I found next that Haas had been the one who selected Sarah as one of those to be pitched into the cold cruel.”
This time she looks at the cold cocoa before sipping.
“Let me go pee. Will you get refills, Sarah? Maybe some chips or other junk?”
She tosses me a credit slip and I head out, proud that I can do this without panicking. Behind me, Betwixt and Between call for me to remember a treat for them.
When I return, Abalone is back in her perch on the bed. I am pleased that the story has waited for me. Once we are settled with cocoa and cake and chips and the rest of my loot from the vending machines, Abalone continues her report.
“Well, the next jump was a leap of faith. I still didn’t want to try Sarah’s file or code a search with her specs, not until I knew more. Then it occurred to me. Someone may want Sarah back—it may be a private individual even, but whoever it is is using the Home. This is where the faith came in—what if someone screwed up letting Sarah out? I decided that made sense, since that would clear up why someone was trying to get her back. Well, the candidate for prime screwup was this Dr. Haas, who cleared Sarah to go.”
Abalone pauses, swigs, and hits an icon on her screen. The screen shifts, but the pattern of numbers and letters remains unintelligible to me. Professor Isabella leans forward, though, scans and grunts.
“Bingo, Abalone. Bingo!”
Beaming, Abalone continues, “With the Haas name as a tracer, I did some more snooping. Not only does she have permission to readmit Sarah if she’s found, but she was the one who had Ali and Francis dragged in. I bet they were questioned and then junked when they couldn’t say where our friend here was.”
“Did you ever go after Sarah’s files?” Professor Isabella asks, her hand clasped tight around her drink.
“Yep, I couldn’t give up, not when things were going so well. Something might have made it tougher for me later.”
“Pshaw,” Professor Isabella chuckles.
I giggle.
“All right, I’m curious. This gets weirder the more I look. I expected to find either that Peep was exaggerating or that a simple recall had been issued. I find neither one nor the other, a mixture of both.”
She touches a few icons and this time I recognize my face up in one corner of the screen. The words mean nothing, but I remember the computer in the outpatient processing center reciting: “Sarah. No surname. No precise date of birth. Admitted from Ivy Green Institute, a private sanatorium.”
I tense, waiting for the flashing lights, the warning “Classified!”
Nothing happens and slowly I let my muscles unknot, realizing that Abalone has failed to alert the warning.
“Ivy Green Institute,” Professor Isabella muses. “Yes, that’s where Sarah was brought